“The truth prevailed. It is with these words that the Filipino Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa hailed her legal victory on Wednesday 18 January. She and her online diary Rappler were acquitted, Wednesday, January 18, of the four counts of tax evasion for which they were prosecuted, announced an appeal court.
Maria Ressa, co-winner of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 with Dmitry Muratov, faces three other criminal cases, including a conviction for cybercrime, currently on appeal, for which she faces nearly seven years in prison.
By crowning this journalist of rare pugnacity, the Nobel Committee had paid tribute to the crusade she was leading against former President Rodrigo Duterte, with the site Rappler, a media that she had founded with three other women journalists and of which she is the leader in Manila. Rappler was particularly famous for his coverage of the populist leader’s murderous war on drugs.
“Very irregular” procedures
Rappler had been ordered to close in June for violating “Constitutional and statutory restrictions on foreign ownership in the media”. Maria Ressa had appealed against this procedure, qualified as “very irregular”.
The newspaper and its founder were accused of tax evasion and violating foreign ownership regulations in order to obtain funding. The site has also been accused of violating a law passed in 2012, the year the site was created. Rappler, in cybercrime.